1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a streaming service for portable devices and, more particularly, to distributed streaming service for portable devices belonging to a service group in a short-distance communication network, enabling each portable device to receive, based on its remaining memory capacity, parts of streaming contents from a streaming server, and enabling a master device of portable devices to play contents by acquiring sub-contents from the other portable devices in a service group.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many Internet users do not have fast enough access to the Internet to quickly download large multimedia files. Streaming is a technique for delivering web-based multimedia files such as video, audio, animation, etc., so that these files can be processed as a steady and continuous stream at the requesting client. A streaming service provides a multimedia content to Internet users, without the users having to wait until content completely downloads to their memory devices. Through caching, content is played as it is received, and buffering mechanisms ensure that content is played smoothly.
Theoretically, a streaming content plays to the end user, or viewer, as an immediate and ongoing broadcast. Practically, a small-sized content such as audio realizes a real-time delivery and play because this content does not require a large bandwidth and a large memory. However, large-sized content, such as video, is often affected by the state of a delivery network or the performance of end user devices. Further, receiving and playing video with high density (or high definition) utilizes a faster data-transmission network and a higher performance device.
When streaming service for portable devices, a mobile communication network has a relatively smaller bandwidth, and most portable devices have a relatively lower performance. Therefore, it is difficult for portable devices to receive and play a high quality video in real-time without a break in displaying the video.